But there was no need to look far, because for all the significance of the victory, SOPA/PIPA were also a prime example of winning the battle not being the same as winning the war. Not only did the Supreme Court choose the blackout day to issue the Golan ruling that allowed works to be yanked back out of the public domain — on Thursday, in the midst of SOPA/PIPA chaos, the DOJ went ahead and unilaterally seized and shut down Megaupload and arrested many of the principles, including Kim Dotcom.

As we now know, the arrest of Kim Dotcom was just the beginning of another long fight about the overreach of the US government and the influence of the entertainment industry thereon — and we know that's not the only example of a continued war against the supporters of free culture and an open internet. The internet should still take time to remember and celebrate the defeat of SOPA though, if only because we're almost certainly going to have to do the same thing again, and again, and again...

from the sopa,-pipa,-spotify-and-privacy dept

Five years ago this week, Americans opened their internet browsers and saw darkness.

Google, Wikipedia, Reddit, the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) and other major websites had banded together and gone dark to make a then-obscure piece of legislation infamous. Wikipedia shut down completely for 24 hours and a black band masked the Google logo.

These internet giants and other online sites joined millions of Americans in protesting the 2012 Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) legislation in a historic grassroots movement. More than four million people signed Google's online petition linked to the blacked-out homepage. Eight million people looked up how to contact their representative when prompted to by Wikipedia. Tumblr alone produced 87,000 calls to representatives. The vast numbers led most congressional sponsors to rescind their support of the bill.

SOPA and PIPA were well intended but ill-advised attempts on the part of Congress to protect the American copyright industry. But the legislation was so broad that it had the potential to harm or eradicate entire websites or online services, instead of specifically targeting individuals who uploaded illegal content.

The New York Times called the SOPA/PIPA protests a "coming of age for the tech industry," and at CTA, we were proud to help lead this vital growth. It was a bipartisan and cross industry effort: venture capitalists and law professors, computer scientists and human rights advocates, progressives and tea partiers teamed together to fight the bills. Still, the bills progressed through Congress and appeared to have the momentum necessary to become law.

The 2012 CES proved to be one of the turning points. We invited two legislators — Republican Congressman Darrell Issa and Democratic Senator Ron Wyden — to Las Vegas to explain how the bill would jeopardize the freedom of the digital world. Both policymakers made strong, smart and passionate cases, and the press and attendees listened. Within days, the tide had reversed, and members of Congress ceased their support of the harmful bills. Weeks later, SOPA and PIPA were history.

We did this because we believe innovation, not an overbroad law, is the best way to grow the economy and fight piracy. History has proved us right. In five years since SOPA/PIPA failed, we've seen many instances of market disruptions and many more cases of technological innovation. Spotify, the now-ubiquitous Swedish streaming service, intentionally developed free streaming as a legal competitor to illegal piracy. It worked: piracy has dropped significantly. In 2013, less than 10 percent of daily web traffic in North America came from peer-to-peer file sharing compared to 31 percent in 2008.

Even more exciting, streaming services also led to significant revenue growth for the music industry. The Recording Industry Association of America, one of the major supporters of the SOPA/PIPA legislation, reported an 8.1 percent increase in overall revenues from the first half of 2015 to the first half of 2016. This was due in large part to paid subscriptions to streaming services.

Other content industries have experienced massive growth as well. Video streaming programs such as Netflix, Amazon and Hulu continue to thrive. U.S. consumers spent 22 percent more on subscription video streaming services in 2016 than in 2015.

The combination of audio and video streaming takes up a whopping 71 percent of evening home entertainment in North America, and this number should only grow in the coming years. Once at odds on the floor of Congress, the innovation of the tech industry and the creativity of the media industries now mutually support and sustain one another's growth.

New technologies will lead to the same market disruptions that the internet prompted for the media industry. Will Congress support new technologies or stifle them? And how will legacy industries evolve to thrive in this changing technological landscape?

This year at CES 2017 in Las Vegas, innovators from around the globe came to exhibit technology that will change our world as we know it. Augmented and virtual reality technology will profoundly affect the media landscape, creating a more immersive and personalized experience. Drones have already changed the face of the retail industry, with Amazon making its first drone delivery in time for the holiday season. Self-driving cars will revolutionize the auto industry, decrease traffic deaths and bring increased mobility to the elderly and those with disabilities. In dealing with the challenges that will inevitably arise, will Congress choose to preserve old models and technologies, or will it embrace the new and allow American ingenuity to lead?

Five years ago, members of Congress sided with progress over fear. The resulting explosion of innovation proved them right. As other new disruptive technologies emerge, we urge policymakers to heed the lessons of SOPA and PIPA and allow new innovations to prosper, thrive and move our society forward.

from the we're-still-here dept

As you may have heard, today is the five-year anniversary of the massive internet blackout that tons of internet users and sites participated in to protest a pair of awful copyright laws, SOPA & PIPA, which would have undermined some of the most basic principles of a free and open internet. In case you've somehow forgotten, go and take a look at the Archive Team's world tour of sites that either went down completely or put up some sort of detailed splash page speaking out against the bills and in favor of internet rights and freedoms. Contrary to what some have tried to claim in rewriting history, that event was a true example of a grassroots uprising against legacy industries and government bureaucracies that wanted to shackle the internet and make it less open, less free and less powerful.

Since that day, there have been multiple other fights around internet freedom, having to do with mass surveillance, encryption, privacy, net neutrality and more. And there will continue to be more fights -- some of them repeats of fights we've already had, and some brand new ones. In particular, we see that Congress is already dipping its toes in the water about copyright reform, five years after SOPA. For years, we heard that, after SOPA, no one in Congress wanted to touch copyright law for fear of "being SOPA'd." However, with some of the new plans coming out for copyright reform, it appears that some in Congress are hoping that the internet has forgotten or moved on.

The internet has not forgotten. The internet is watching closely.

This applies not just to copyright reform, but the latest plans to do away with net neutrality. As outgoing FCC boss Tom Wheeler has warned, the new FCC undermines net neutrality at its own peril. The public overwhelmingly supports net neutrality, and attempts to undermine it will lead the internet to speak up again. Of course, if those in power have their way, part of the undermining of an open internet will be to make it even harder for the public to speak out -- which is why we need to do so loudly while we can.

There are, of course, also ongoing fights about backdooring encryption and mass surveillance on the internet. We still need to reform ECPA and other outdated surveillance laws. Executive Order 12333 is still a massive blackhole of surveillance powers. Later this year, Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act is going to sunset and there will be a fight over its renewal.

We can't -- and won't -- create a massive "internet blackout" for every single threat to internet freedom. Unfortunately, if we were doing that, it would happen far too often. But policymakers are being naive if they think that they can effectively DDoS the internet policy space by promoting so many bad policies at once that the internet won't notice. We may not win every battle, but the internet is watching carefully what policy makers do around making sure the internet remains open and free -- and is ready to speak out when those core principles are attacked by legacy industries unwilling to innovate or by policymakers too captured by industries who seek to block innovation.

The internet is watching. The internet has not forgotten. And policymakers that seek to undermine an open internet may discover just how quickly and loudly the open internet responds to such threats.

from the and-then-donate dept

The following is from Jen Hoelzer, who for years worked as Senator Ron Wyden's Communications Director and Deputy Chief of Staff. During the SOPA/PIPA fight, she was perhaps the key person in Congress getting the press (and others in Congress) to understand the importance of SOPA and PIPA and what it meant for the internet. This morning, completely out of the blue, she sent this over. I think it does an amazing job highlighting just how important independent coverage of important tech policy issues, like what we provide, can be on these debates. Plenty of cynical people said that the SOPA/PIPA fight couldn't be won. Those same people are saying that the net neutrality battle is already lost. Good, independent reporting on these issues does make a difference, which is why we're asking you to support us in our net neutrality coverage.

Hi. My name is Jen... and I was once a Congressional staffer who knew so little about Internet policy that I had no idea how little I knew about Internet policy. (I think this is where you're supposed to supportively say, "Hi, Jen," and reassure me that this is a safe space for me to continue my embarrassing confession. Because it gets worse.)

In late 2010, when my former boss -- U.S. Senator Ron Wyden -- announced that he was putting a hold on the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) – the predecessor to PIPA and later, SOPA -- I not only didn't know how the DNS system worked, I'm not sure I knew what infringement meant. (I'm not proud of these things, but they're true.)

If my boss hadn't involved himself in this issue, odds are I would never have heard of it and, heck, if by some chance I had learned that the Judiciary Committee had unanimously passed legislation giving law enforcement (what their press release called) "important tools" to go after illegal activity, I probably wouldn't have given the issue any thought beyond thinking it was nice that Democrats and Republicans remembered how to work together.

Worse yet, when my chief of staff stopped by my office to let me know that the Senator would be placing a hold on the legislation, I didn't drop what I was doing to alert reporters or ask one of my deputies to pound out a press release. I'm not sure I even looked up from my computer.

Honestly, it didn't occur to me that anyone would consider what my boss did that afternoon news, until I got a Google News Alert that a blog called, Techdirt, had written about it.

Now, in my defense, the above does not mean that I was lazy or willfully ignorant. From the outside, I realize Congress doesn't appear to do anything, but there are so many bills and issues swirling around Capitol Hill at any one time that it's a challenge just to stay on top of the sliver of them that pertains to your job. On an average day, Senator Wyden could go from a breakfast forum on health reform, to a committee hearing on tax reform, to introducing legislation on renewable energy, to questioning the forest service on resources for firefighting, before giving a floor speech on NSA surveillance, and that would just be before noon. So, the odds of my being on top of something that happened in a Committee my boss wasn't assigned to -- like the Judiciary Committee -- were slim.

Furthermore, my deputies and I -- as Wyden's communications director -- could barely keep up with all of the questions and requests we got from reporters. We didn't have the time or resources to tweet about everything he did, let alone proactively promote all of his work. I mean, just writing and distributing a press release can take a few hours, coming up with a messaging strategy, educating reporters, planning events and writing the various one-pagers, FAQs, op-eds and speeches needed to support a successful advocacy campaign can take days, weeks, even months and that's if nothing else is going on (which is rarely the case).

The day Senator Wyden put a hold on COICA, was the same day he introduced legislation to amend the Affordable Care Act with Senator Scott Brown. I was getting inundated with questions from reporters and bloggers wanting to understand "why in the hell he'd do such a thing," plus the Democratic caucus wanted us to put out and promote a statement pushing for the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, which had my deputy tied up, in addition to the various other things that tended to make the end of session a sprint.

I didn't jump at the opportunity to publicize my boss's hold announcement, because I didn't know enough about the issue to judge its news value, let alone explain it to reporters or write a quick press release, and I didn't have the time to learn enough about it to do any of those things before the end of the day. So, I told my chief of staff "great" and went back to talking to reporters about health policy.

Again, I'm not proud of the above story, but I was moved to share it, when I read that Techdirt's coverage of the COICA/PIPA/SOPA debate ultimately cost them more than 50% of their advertising revenue and has since forced them to operate at a loss.

I don't want to imagine a tech debate without Techdirt in it.

I can't even begin to imagine how the COICA/PIPA/SOPA debate would have gone without Mike Masnick and Techdirt's coverage.

But I can imagine where I -- personally -- would have been without Techdirt's coverage. All I have to do is close my eyes and remember November 18, 2010. Now, as much as I'd like to tell you that Mike's November post on Ron Wyden's COICA hold changed everything for me, it didn't. One post couldn't make me an expert on Internet issues any more than a single story could have won the debate. But I can say the more I learned about the issues surrounding COICA and later PIPA and SOPA – and the more confident I grew in my knowledge and ability to explain those issues -- the more involved I got, the more press releases, speeches, FAQ's and blogs I wrote in support of Ron's work, the more reporters I talked to, coverage I influenced, and interviews I secured for the senator.

I can also say, I wouldn't have been able to do any of those things (at least not well) without Mike Masnick and the rest of the guys at Techdirt, because they're the guys who taught me tech policy.

That's not to say, I didn't work with really smart people who taught me a lot, I did and they did; but with Techdirt, I never had to ask a stupid question or admit what I didn't know. (I just kept reading.) Techdirt's posts were consistently straightforward, easy to understand and timely. Sure, another site might put together one or two good posts or a definitive explainer, but reading Techdirt every day was like taking a college course on the issues with every new post helping me understand a new aspect of what I'd learned previously. I often found some of the site's shorter posts and illustrative examples the most helpful, because they were the examples I ultimately used to explain the issues to others. For example, I've yet to find a better way to get someone to see the potential harm bills like SOPA and PIPA can do to free speech than pointing out that Universal once tried to blacklist 50 Cent's personal website, a fact I learned from a 6/21/11 Techdirt post, entitled "Did Universal Music Declare 50 Cent's Own Website A Pirate Site?" (Seriously, that story alone helped me convince at least a dozen – non-tech – reporters to write about the issue, not to mention all of the Hill staffers I shared it with.)

Now, I understand that some of you may be tempted to write my experience off as unique (or flame me for asking you to sympathize with Congressional staffers), but I guarantee not having enough hours in the day was not an affliction unique to my experience. I'd also argue that good lobbyists derive less power from campaign contributions than they do from helping tired, overworked, Congressional staffers "understand" complex issues.

Lobbyists are experts at framing their client's positions in ways that sound like non-controversial no-brainers. They're so good at it, that most of them have even been convinced by their own arguments. A seasoned staffer who understands the issue at play will see through the lobbyist's ploy (and realize the offers of assistance aren't really "help"), but there aren't very many seasoned staffers who work on Internet and tech policy. To create those staffers and make the lobbyist's job harder, means helping those overworked staffers learn these issues, with short, easily digestible information that makes the problems with the lobbyists' sales pitch easy to discern. And, speaking from experience, no one is better at that than Techdirt.

Now, one of the sad realities of our political system is the fact that helping for-profit entities maintain the advantages that made them profitable pays a lot more than advocating for the public interest, which – if you're lucky – might yield you a pat on the back. But just because something isn't done for the money, doesn't mean those who do it don't have to earn a living. Saving the Internet shouldn't force Mike's staff to take pay cuts or his kids to go hungry.

If you care about a free and open Internet, you want Techdirt to be at full strength in the Net Neutrality debate. You want them to be educating more lawmakers and their staffers (like my former self) to understand these issues and be confident enough in their knowledge to take a stand against the cable companies and their lobbyists.

I'm donating to Techdirt's campaign because I know where I would have been without their work and I don't want a tech debate to take place without them. I hope you will do the same. It's also a great way to say thanks.

from the just-swings-around-and-around-and-around dept

A couple of years ago, we wrote about an interview with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, in which he explained one of his most effective strategies in getting legislation in his favor. The key trick: find key staffers working for elected officials and tell them they had a job waiting for them whenever they wanted it. Here was the key bit:

And he would ask them: "When do you want to start?" If they said "two years," he knew that the guy was already working for him, but on the inside. As he says "I really hired him that day," even though he went on for two more years working as a chief-of-staff to someone in Congress.

Just yesterday, we wrote about Rep. Howard Berman -- famous for his support of ever expanding copyright law -- who has now been hired to lobby for the MPAA. Berman, the former Congressman, is obviously the headline piece. But, along with that news came some further news that didn't get as much attention -- which is that in hiring the firm that Berman works for, Covington & Burling, the MPAA didn't just hire Berman, but also Aaron Cooper, who was Senator Patrick Leahy's chief intellectual property staffer, and the main guy behind the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), the Senate's version of SOPA.

The MPAA, of course, was the main driving lobbying force (along with the US Chamber of Commerce) to get SOPA/PIPA approved. And here we are, just a couple of years later, and the Congressional staffer who was the main internal architect of that bill is... now officially paid by the MPAA. The old "revolving door" continues to swing round and round. Jack Abramoff would be proud.

from the but-of-course dept

You may recall that, as SOPA/PIPA were in their final death throes, MPAA boss Chris Dodd made a significant political faux pas in flat out warning politicians that if they refused to stay bought, the MPAA might not keep funding them:

"Those who count on quote 'Hollywood' for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who's going to stand up for them when their job is at stake. Don't ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don't pay any attention to me when my job is at stake,"

Historically, of course, it has always been the Democrats that Hollywood has backed the most. While there are some high profile exceptions, Hollywood is a Democratic town. And, of course, with the Democrats failing to give Hollywood its desired censorship tool, the MPAA has apparently shifted strategies and has ramped up its funding of Republicans (possible paywall, depending on where you visit from):

Last year, the MPAA replaced its longtime lead lobbying firm, considered to be close with Democrats, with a lobbyist with ties to key GOP lawmakers. Its political-action committee now gives more donations to Republicans than Democrats. And it has sent money to a GOP super PAC, a conservative antitax entity and a business lobby helping Republicans in the 2014 elections.

Of course, this isn't so much the end result of Dodd's promise, rather it appears to be the MPAA recognizing that the party that bailed first (and most loudly) on SOPA and PIPA... were the Republicans, who have begun showing sparks that suggest that they may break from the bipartisan support for copyright maximalism.

While it's easy to be cynical about the MPAA here, it's more likely that this is all by design by Congress itself. For all the belief that lobbyists drive the agenda in Congress via money, when you dig down, you realize it's often the opposite, with the politicians themselves effectively extorting money from lobbyists by threatening to push certain laws.

In fact, right before SOPA blew up, a cynical, but knowledgeable (and all too prescient) friend of mine pointed out that the whole point of SOPA/PIPA was to pit two "rich" industries -- tech and Hollywood -- against each other to make donations rain from the sky. As this friend pointed out, for years, Congress would pit two other "rich" industries -- radio broadcasters and the recording industry -- against each other by pushing a performance rights bill, and both sides would donate heavily to various candidates in support of or against it. However, by 2010, it was quickly becoming clear that neither the radio industry, nor the recording industry were going to continue being huge successful industries with lots of money to throw around lobbying. So, folks on the Judiciary Committee looked around and sought a bill that would get the tech industry and Hollywood all riled up to start donating. It didn't much matter if the bills passed or not -- just that people got angry.

And that's more or less what happened.

And, now the MPAA is raining dollars on candidates it hasn't in the past:

In 2010, MPAA had a budget of about $50 million, down from $70 million in 2008, according to tax forms. In 2012, the last year for which tax forms are available, MPAA's budget was back to nearly $70 million....

The fastest-growing part of the MPAA budget is donations to interest groups and political organizations. It made $2.5 million in grants to third-party groups in 2012, up from just $120,000 in 2009. Many were routed to nonpolitical organizations that share Hollywood's interest in copyright protections or lower taxes. About $600,000 went to organizations that play a more political role.

MPAA gave $75,000 to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which is a top supporter of Republican candidates for Congress; $100,000 to Americans for Tax Reform, the antitax group run by conservative advocate Grover Norquist ; $25,000 to the large pro-Republican super PAC American Action Network; and $20,000 to Let Freedom Ring, whose mission is to "counter the attacks of anti-conservative groups," according to its website.

Cynical or not, if the plan all along with SOPA/PIPA was basically a fundraising plan for Congress, well, mission accomplished.

from the you're-not-helping dept

As we recently announced and participated in, a group of websites, companies, consumer advocacy groups and digital rights organizations all joined forces for a day of action last Tuesday against mass surveillance. That protest, dedicated to the memory of Aaron Swartz, involved participants and websites running banners that urged visitors to head over to the protest website and contact their representatives. An underlying goal was to harness some of the outrage against SOPA/PIPA and direct it toward the NSA's ongoing surveillance abuses, since online protest have been proven to help move the needle, even if they can't all be on the scale of SOPA.

Not everybody was impressed. Because the NSA and friends didn't immediately admit fault and declare an end to all surveillance before crying a lot, launching balloons and committing coordinated seppuku on the steps of the Capitol building, Nicole Perlroth at the NY Times took to penning a slightly-snotty article strongly suggesting the effort was a waste of time and "barely registered":

"...the protest on Tuesday barely registered. Wikipedia did not participate. Reddit — which went offline for 12 hours during the protests two years ago — added an inconspicuous banner to its homepage. Sites like Tumblr, Mozilla and DuckDuckGo, which were listed as organizers, did not include the banner on their homepages. The most vocal protesters were the usual suspects: activist groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International and Greenpeace."

Apparently because the "usual suspects" like the EFF are always saying lot of weird stuff, there wasn't much point in paying attention to them (or something). Perlroth also implies that if large companies like Google and Wikipedia aren't going to loudly participate in your online protests, you might as well go home and cry in your pudding, because as we've seen all throughout history, it's impossible to enact meaningful social change without the help of a large corporate donor.

Some of the folks more closely associated with the protest didn't agree, like Sina Khanifar, who helped coordinate the campaign. Khanifar points out in a blog post that Perlroth's definition of "barely registering" could use some fine tuning:

"I'm not sure how 80k calls and over 500k emails counts as "barely registering." That's not to mention over 400k shares on Facebook, and another 100k on Twitter and Google Plus. And over 200 million page views of the banner. Compare Tuesday with the lead-up to the vote on Rep. Amash’s bill to defund NSA’s call records program. In two days about 15,000 calls were made through DefundTheNSA.com. Staffers reported that their phones rang heavily in support of the bill."

Khanifar rather amusingly picks apart numerous other problems with Perlroth's article, like the claim there was no substantive discussion on Reddit (there were roughly 7,000 comments, and Redditors are busy organizing the next wave) and the argument that participants Tumblr, Mozilla and DuckDuckGo did nothing to their websites (they did), while noting that this was one small part of a much broader effort towards NSA reform. He also quite correctly points out that if you're going to compare every online protest to the single largest and most successful protest in the history of the Internet, you're probably going to spend a lot of time disappointed. To make Perlroth happy though, perhaps next time we get the urge to protest, we'll pre-emptively realize the futility of the effort and stay home to watch reality TV instead. That'll learn 'em.

from the incredible dept

On this Internet Freedom Day, Declan McCullagh has a great post in which he reached out to the key politicians and lobbyists who supported SOPA and PIPA last year to see what they had to say one year later. The quotes are really incredible in their tone deafness to what happened. All of them -- smartly -- are about looking forward, rather than looking back, but none of them mention the public or doing what's best for the public. A bunch of them set up the false dichotomy of "Hollywood" vs. "Silicon Valley" as if this was all a giant commercial dispute. The others all speak of it in commercial terms. Incredibly, despite millions of individuals speaking up for our rights, not a single person interviewed by McCullagh seems to even think it's worth mentioning.

Let's take a look at some of the statements.

The problem of Internet piracy and the sale of counterfeit products online has not gone away. Senator Leahy continues to monitor law enforcement actions, significant developments in the courts and voluntary industry practices, and all those pieces will help determine what next steps are appropriate.
— spokeswoman for Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee and author of the Protect IP Act

Well, first problem: the continued conflation of internet copyright infringement with the sale of counterfeit products. These are two very, very different issues with very different causes that require very different approaches to dealing with them. Yet, Leahy and others have used this conflation to dangerous ends with bills like PIPA. What they do is take the widespread nature of copyright infringement and mix it with the very very very small, but still real, possibility of serious harm from some very specific cases of product counterfeiting (i.e., drugs and military equipment) -- and then try to create broad "solutions" that have massive unintended consequences impacting individual freedoms like freedom of speech. If both of those things are "problems" then lets have real discussions about them individually. The second you mix them together, you know that something bad will come out of it.

We can all agree about the importance of protecting American innovation from foreign thieves, but I think it is critical that all parties have a seat at the table and work together to solve important policy issues. As chairman of the Judiciary committee, I look forward to working with both the technology and content communities to find ways to protect America's competitive advantage while promoting internet freedom and growth.
— Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Virginia), chairman of the House Judiciary committee and original sponsor of SOPA

First of all, you don't "steal" innovation. Innovation is a process. But, even beyond that, when he talks about "all parties" having "a seat at the table" and working together, notice that he doesn't mention the public at all. It's just "technology and content communities." That was a big part of the problem in the first place and it's disappointing that Goodlatte is still pushing this silly line. This was never "tech vs. content." This was about the public and forward-looking organizations who want to keep the internet free and open -- and legacy players (in both the content and tech industries, by the way) who were looking to lock down and control new systems in a weak attempt to protect increasingly obsolete business models. Bringing "tech" and "content" to the table and thinking those are the two sides in this fight isn't just mistaken, it gets the whole basis of this dispute wrong and will inevitably lead to more problems. Out of that comes bogus "solutions" like the six strikes agreements, which again completely left the public out in the cold.

Goodlatte is now the head of the House Judiciary Committee. He's always presented himself as a friend to Silicon Valley (and reminds us over and over and over again that his son works at Facebook). If he wants to do a better job than his predecessor, he needs to get past the artificial divides like "tech" vs. "content" and start looking at the real issues: the public and innovators vs. legacy players. Those cut across both lines. There are legacy tech players looking to hold back innovation, just as there are innovative, public-embracing content players.

Hollywood and Silicon Valley have more in common than most people realize. We share a commitment to innovation, to our consumers, and are working together to develop new platforms to make that content easily and legally accessible. Like the tech industry, the well-being of the film community is dependent on a vibrant First Amendment and we would never support any legislation that limits this fundamental right. We can all agree no one wins if everyone loses. Preserving freedom of speech and protecting intellectual property rights are not mutually exclusive efforts. Intellectual property protection is essential to creators and makers in both industries and we need to discuss it rationally. Let's use this anniversary to forge a path toward the future where the creative content and technology industries work together to develop meaningful solutions that ensure an Internet that works for everyone.
— Michael O'Leary, senior executive vice president for global policy and external affairs at the Motion Picture Association of America

We agree on the first half, but as is so often the case, O'Leary states the first half to basically try to avoid the obvious criticism of the second half. He states that the MPAA would never support legislation that limits the First Amendment, but he's done exactly that. Preserving freedom of speech and protecting "intellectual property" may not be mutually exclusive, but they absolutely can conflict, and frequently do conflict. The MPAA has refused to even acknowledge this possibility.

From there, the statement gets more and more problematic. We've seen over and over again that, while many creators and tech companies do use copyright, patents and trademarks, they are hardly "essential". Again, by simplifying this to "tech" vs. "content" it's easy for O'Leary to point to legacy tech companies who lean hard on copyright or patents, and then suggest that both "sides" want greater protectionism. But that's misleading. As discussed above, much of this is really about legacy players trying to block innovators who are looking to benefit the public. You can easily line up a bunch of legacy players on both the tech and content sides who will agree until the end of time about the values of protectionism -- just as you could line up true innovators in both areas who say that patents, copyright and trademark are of little value and are mostly a distraction.

It's a new day for a new music business and for the RIAA. For the better part of the last year, we have focused on being an evangelist for the dynamic, exciting legal online marketplace that now exists for fans. That will continue to be our priority in 2013. We earn more than half of our revenues from digital services and platforms. Not many creative industries can say that. Music helps drive social media trends and device sales. In fact, in 2012, the two top Google searches were music-related. Currently, 19 of the top 20 YouTube videos are music videos. And according to Twitter, seven of the top 10 Twitter accounts are held by artists.

What does this all tell us? Music is at the center of cultural and commercial phenomena. We are not stuck in the past but looking ahead at a promising, bright future teeming with new music options. Which is why we created, along with our online retailer partner NARM, WhyMusicMatters.com, a one-stop educational guide for digital music so fans can know where to get their favorite music in a variety of different ways. And we expect that this bright future will offer access to music in ways currently unimaginable but will perhaps seem commonplace a year from now.

Yes, piracy still continues to plague us and is a continuing threat to our business. But instead of looking to Congress for help, we are tuned in to the marketplace and actively seeking out voluntary partnerships with intermediaries like ISPs and advertisers to help curtail illegal downloading. Moving forward, we want to simplify music licensing to make it easier to develop music business models. We know that music models continue to evolve - access and listening models are becoming more prevalent and it's imperative we derive a fair market return for the music that is the foundation of those businesses. And as always, we'll continue to find new ways to promote the dynamic music marketplace.
— Mitch Glazier, senior executive vice president at the Recording Industry Association of America.

In typical Glazier fashion, those first two paragraphs are simply misdirection. Yes, of course music is important and a part of the cultural fabric. Duh. But notice that he's not actually concerned about ways to increase that through the better spreading of music, the ability to share and experience culture. No, he's solely focused on one thing: getting paid directly for each use of the song. And that's because the companies he represents -- the music labels -- were mostly built on that as a sole revenue stream. He's not talking about neat things like Kickstarter or Bandcamp that have allowed artists to "go direct" to fans, because that kind of stuff gets in the way.

It's good to see him committed to fixing licensing, because it's a massive problem, but I'll note that the RIAA was heavily involved in trying to block a bill last year that would have made music licensing more reasonable and affordable so that there would be new ways to distribute music legally.

Finally, the whole "voluntary" agreements thing is a bit of a red herring as well, as it seems as though the MPAA and RIAA are really focused on using these "voluntary" agreements to more or less get what they wanted in SOPA in the first place -- and that often means less due process and fewer fundamental rights and abilities for the public.

Protection of intellectual property and Internet freedom are critically important. The Chamber will work with members on both sides of the aisle to find an effective and commercially reasonable solution to address this ongoing problem.
— U.S. Chamber of Commerce spokeswoman

Not much to say on that, other than the US Chamber of Commerce was the leading lobbyist pushing for SOPA/PIPA last year. Their interpretation of "commercially reasonable solution" is highly suspect. Oh yeah, as is their interpretation of the "ongoing problem." The last time we looked, the US Chamber of Commerce was using flat-out bogus numbers and claims to support their description of "the problem." If you define "the problem" incorrectly, the "solution" is probably going to be an even bigger problem.

If you had asked me how I felt on January 18, 2012, about the prospects for protecting the creative work of artists and innovative businesses in the wake of the internet revolt against the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act, my response might have involved some muttering under my breath and a request for a stiff drink. In the coming week, many who seek to exploit the work of creators without their consent will be looking backwards and celebrating last year's defeat of those bills. So one might expect advocates for artists and creators to be in a dour mood again, but there is ample cause for optimism among members of the creative community...

At least some of the goals of the legislation have been achieved through increased private and government action since the introduction of the first version of the bills in 2010:

More credit card companies are engaging in best practices. In June 2011, major credit card companies and online payment processors (American Express, Discover, MasterCard, PayPal and Visa) reached an agreement on voluntary best practices to reduce sales of counterfeit and pirated goods by cutting off sites that distribute infringing goods from conducting financial transactions through these processors.

More advertisers are engaging in best practices. On May 3, 2012, the Association of National Advertisers and the American Association of Advertising Agencies issued a statement of best practices to address online piracy and counterfeiting.

Internet service providers, movie studios and record labels are collaborating on a Copyright Alert System. Under this system ISPs have agreed to notify users when their accounts appear to be used for illegal downloading activity and to impose real consequences on users who refuse to stop after receiving multiple notices.

Google finally started considering whether sites are rogue websites when doing search rankings. In August 2012, Google announced a change in its search algorithm that takes into account the number of "valid copyright removal notices" when determining the ranking of search results. In its announcement, Google indicated the goal was to help its users find legitimate sources of content more easily...

As more artists and creators stand with their peers and highlight what is really happening on the Internet, more people will listen and think twice. If there is a silver lining to the blackout, it has been the people who we have met this year: artists, reformed 'pirates' academics and lawmakers who want to begin meaningful conversations about promoting creativity and ensuring it finds a place in all of our lives.
— Sandra Aistars, executive director of the Copyright Alliance

This picks up on Mitch Glazier and Senator Leahy's comments on "voluntary" solutions and shows something important. Note that all of those bullet points in the "voluntary" category are the kinds of things that SOPA/PIPA sought to make mandatory. As incredibly vital as the fight against SOPA/PIPA was last year, it's also important to see that the industry (sometimes with government help) has continued to browbeat companies into more or less implementing the rules anyway. When those "voluntary" rules conflict with individual freedoms -- as is the case with certain gatekeepers (e.g., limited number of payment processors) -- we should be worried.

All in all, these comments show a consistent pattern. SOPA and PIPA might not come back as new legislation... but the issues are still very much with us. Those in power still don't understand the core issues, believing it's a commercial dispute between two mis-defined industries, while the focus on "voluntary" solutions seems to be attacking individual rights without people noticing.

from the internet-freedom-day dept

For many who knew Aaron Swartz, this Internet Freedom Day -- the anniversary of last year's January 18th blackouts that led to the end of SOPA/PIPA -- is a bit bittersweet. Aaron played a very large role in helping stop SOPA last year -- to the point that I'm not sure the bills would have been stopped without his help. Thus, many are using today as both a celebration of what happened last year, as well as a memorial for Swartz. And what better way to combine the two than to watch Swartz's excellent keynote speech at F2C: Freedom to Connect last year about "How we stopped SOPA." It gives a good history of the bill, combined with Aaron's own accomplishments during the fight.

Oh, and for those who still insist that SOPA was stopped by Google, remember that Aaron was no fan of Google.

from the enjoy dept

Lawyer Marvin Ammori has had an uncanny knack for being deeply involved in a few key battles for internet freedom over the years, including the SOPA fight last year. As today is the one year anniversary of the big January 18th blackout that effectively killed SOPA/PIPA -- a day many are calling "Internet Freedom Day" -- Ammori has put together a fantastic Kindle Single (i.e., short ebook) entitled On Internet Freedom. Just for Internet Freedom Day, the book is available free. If you don't have a Kindle device, but do have a smartphone/tablet, you can still download it today for free and then read it whenever you get around to it. Ammori shared a draft copy with me, and it's a very worthwhile read. Not only does it discuss a variety of battles concerning internet freedom, it pulls them all together to look at why these battles are happening... and why they're going to continue. As such, it's an important book for people to read to understand some of the larger issues at play, and why we need to continue to be vigilant in making sure the internet remains free and open. If you don't pick up your free copy today -- or if you just want to support some good causes -- after today the ebook will still be available for $4.99, with all of the profits being donated to Demand Progress and Fight for the Future, two of the leading activist groups fighting on these issues.